Women in Islam and Judaism Essays - Family, Philosophy Of Love

Women in Islam and Judaism For most of history, Judaism was relegating women to a lower status than men. The traditional place of women in Jewish life was the home, which was not a religious institution with too much influence. All religious activities that took place outside the home, like study, prayer, were considered mandatory only for men. Women's space was in the Jewish house while the men are outside praying, they were in the house cleaning and cooking and doing whatever. Now we have the Reform movement which adopted some measures intended to equalize the role of women in the synagogue and made the structure of Judaism to change in response to the feminist critique. But one thing that was to me at least something that every human on earth should have, is to choose to who he wants to marry. In Judaism you need to go through a matchmaker and they will choose the "candidates" for you to marry. You cannot marry someone without the matchmaker matching you with th at someone. It's very strict and shows that even when its time to move a step forward in life, women still have no real choice . They do have they choice who to marry from the candidates the matchmaker is suggesting, but it's not like meting someone and then falling in love or having experiences together. C ling ( ) is also something that shows that religion is not giving you the freedom to touch someone. Not in a sexual way but even shaking hands as a sign of respect is not allowed. Oppressed, inferior, and unequal - for many people, these are the first words that come to mind when thinking about women in Islam. But, G od devotes an entire chapter of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, to women. In addition, God directly addresses women repeatedly throughout the Quran. Islam says that all human beings, men and women, are born in a pure state. The goal of every Muslim is to preserve this purity by shunning evil tendencies and beautifying their inner being with virtuous traits. While feminism rejects any sort of complementarity of the sexes, Islam emphasizes it through the accentuation of different soci al roles for men and women, very similar to Judaism. In Islam a man is not oppressed by God, but perfected. Sexual pleasure in itself is not considered evil. Nevertheless, Islam places strict constraints on sexual behavior. These constraints differ for men and women. Men are permitted to have more than one wife simultaneously, while women are not permitted to have more than one husband at any one time. Women may take a strong political stand .S ome positions, however, such as leading prayers for men, are considered inappropriate for women. I n the U.S people often assume that because social relations between men and women are restricted in Islamic societies in ways that seem strange to them, they think that Muslim women are not socially and politically active. Similar to Judaism , Islam has its own way of marriage. A women, must marry whoever her father wants to. Basically, you are not choosing who you want to be with, the choice is made if you like it or not. Most of the times a father won't make his daughter marry someone she doesn't want to but that's an option. I do find both Islam and Judaism very similar in their approach towards women and both are very strict towards women. Many stereotypes around the world about the role of a women in a religion. In the end, a women has a voice. Not as loud as a men's voice but it is something.